RESIDENTS in Alderley Edge have banded together to show their support for a two-pronged campaign to safeguard the future of two of the village's amenities.

More than 800 concerned villagers gathered in Alderley Edge village centre on Saturday to sign a petiton to save Festival Hall from being demolished and to halt plans to turn part of Alderley Park into a temporary car park.

And signatures are still pouring in from people wanting to register their concerns about the loss of the community's leisure facilities.

The petition will be handed over to Macclesfield Borough Council's Leisure Services department at the beginning of July.

Campaigner, Mary Maczkowiak, chairman of Alderley Edge Parish Council, said: "It was brilliant. We couldn't believe the response we got, but people said they didn't know about the proposals and had been prompted to turn out after reading about the campaign in The Wilmslow Express.

"As well as standing in the street some of the residents including Betty Dale, Eileen Fitcher, Anna Fearn and Janet Nixon were going around with clipboards getting people to sign.

"I thoroughly enjoyed it and people were very vocal and thanked us for doing it so that they could get their voice across."

The future of the Festival Hall hangs in the balance after a review found it was poorly used and losing money year on year. Despite nearly 2,000 bookings each year and 60,000 visitors, Macclesfield Borough Council deemed it out of touch with the modern community.

Villagers were then hit with a double whammy after being told that work may soon be going ahead to turn part of Alderley Park into a temporary car park in order to replace the 63 parking spaces that will be lost while work gets underway to build shops and an apartment complex at the precinct.

Mary added: "We are now starting to go door to door and hopefully the number of signatures will grow. We're aiming to get around 3,000 people on board and then we'll take the petition to Mark Wheelton at Macclesfield Borough Council's Leisure Services department. Then the council will have to sit up and listen because the people will have voted.

"If no one had been interested then I would have put it back to the borough council, but clearly people are keen to fight to save these amenities. We've even had elderly and housbound people phoning us to ask if we'd go round to their homes so that they can put their signature on the petition.

"Clearly the council are not taking into account the opinions and leisure needs of the community.